The Other Side of the Street

Last Saturday, during a photo walk, the question came back again.

It often does.

So… 28, 35, or 50?

Which focal length really feels right in the street?

It sounds like a technical question. But it never really is.

I used to love the Sigma 35mm Art for street photography.

It was heavy, almost too sharp, and not exactly discreet. But it gave me a distance that felt natural.

It allowed me to stay inside the movement of the street. Close enough to feel the scene, wide enough to let the world enter the frame. There was room for context, for accidents, for gestures arriving from the edges.

Not too close.
Not too far.

I know the current fashion often leans wider. The Ricoh GR, with its 28mm lens, has almost become an emblem of street photography.

But 28mm asks for a kind of closeness I do not always seek.

These days, I often use a 50mm.

It is less forgiving. It does not gather the street as easily. It asks for more precision, more patience, and sometimes a very simple decision: to cross the road.

That small movement changes everything.

From the other side of the street, I am no longer quite inside the scene. I am looking at it. Waiting for it. Letting it arrange itself without me.

Sometimes I see a photograph forming too late. A gesture, a face, a small alignment between people and architecture. With a 35mm, I might have entered the scene and taken it. With a 50mm, I realize I am already too late.

The 35mm let me participate.

The 50mm taught me to miss photographs.

Below 35mm, I often become too aware of the lens. The edges stretch. Bodies change too quickly. Space becomes dramatic in a way that does not always feel like mine.

The 50mm gives me less to hold on to.

Being almost in the right place is rarely enough.

But perhaps that is why I keep using it.

With a 50mm, I have to decide where I stand before the moment arrives.

And sometimes, that place is simply the other side of the street.

The distance from which I can still look.

The photographs are gathered here:
Selected Works